Glenn Beck Uses BP Oil Spill To Accuse Obama Of Hating White People

Glenn Beck was full of hammy outrage that President Obama had said he was not interested in talking to BP’s CEO. But rather than focus on why President Obama should meet with the CEO and what might come out of such a discussion, Beck seemed more interested in using the incident as an excuse to paint Obama as a black racist communist who was too prejudiced to meet with a white CEO. It was Round 2 (or maybe more) of Beck’s now-infamousassertion that Obama is a “racist” with a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”

Beck began his hate mongering with a dash of fear mongering. “The president is using the BP oil spill crisis to jam cap and trade right down your throat. That’s why he compared it to 9/11.”

Then it was time for the race card. First, Beck started a bizarre rant attacking the left (I think) for worrying about a backlash against Muslims in the wake of 9/11 and yet not condemning prejudice and violence against BP.

Then, after having set the stage for BP as victim, Beck played a clip of Obama saying that he has not talked to the BP CEO because “My experience is when you talk to a guy like a BP CEO, he’s going to say all the right things to me. I’m not interested in words, I’m interested in action.”

Beck, on the other hand, was only interested in words, not actions. He “wondered” what Obama had meant - meaning, of course, that Beck was about to hypothesize in a way that used Obama’s words to smear him to the utmost. “Maybe it’s a typical capitalist,” Beck theorized.

No, that wasn’t quite it. Beck had bigger, race-baiting fish to fry. Mocking Obama, Beck continued, “I’ll meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad… without any preconditions because we have to be able to talk… We’ll sit down, have some tea, some crumpets… Yeah, you’re a raging lunatic but we can get through to you and trust you. Now, the BP CEO? Depart from me, evil one!”

“What is it that the dictator of Iran… has in the credibility department that the CEO of BP doesn’t have?” Beck asked rhetorically. “… Does the fact the BP CEO is a capitalist, is that what does it?”

No, that wasn’t it. Beck lowered his voice to move in for the kill. “He’s a white CEO. Maybe that’s it… White CEO’s… they don’t want to pay their tax dollars and have those tax dollars go to ‘inner city kids.’”

After joking that the Huffington Post would be blogging about his “baseless accusations,” Beck went on to make what can only be called a baseless suggestion: that Obama didn’t want to meet with the BP CEO because he’s white.

Beck’s “proof” was a clip of Obama saying, in 1995, “And I really want to emphasize the word ‘responsibility.’ I think that whether you are a white executive living out in the suburbs who doesn't want to pay taxes to inner-city children to -- for them to go to school.”

In reality, as Media Matters noted, Obama was talking about the need for whites and blacks to take responsibility. The full quote is:

I think that whether you are a white executive living out in the suburbs who doesn't want to pay taxes to inner-city children to -- for them to go to school or you are a inner-city child who doesn't want to take responsibility for keeping your street safe and clean, both of those groups have to take some responsibility if we're going to get beyond the kinds of divisions that we face right now.

It was more than a little ironic that Beck used a clip of Obama talking about how to get beyond racial divisions for his own racially divisive purposes. Funny how “fair and balanced,” “we report, you decide” Fox News didn’t seem to mind that the quote was used in such a misleading way.

Beck went on to suggest that Obama had meant that white executives are all racists, “all alike, you know” and “just hate those inner city kids.”

Beck said, “It’s almost like the president has made up his mind on (the BP CEO) and anyone like him…” Beck didn't need to say outright what he obviously meant: that it was "almost" like the president has made up his mind against any white capitalist.

From there, Beck rehashed the old Henry Gates "controversy," Obama’s objections to Arizona’s new immigration law, his 2008 comments about his “typical white person” grandmother (misidentified on the Fox News screen as having been said in 2010). Beck made rodeo clown faces as he listened to Obama's comments about his grandmother.

In the same show, Beck said, “If I get out of control and start leveling baseless charges that can't be backed up, guess what happens? I'm fired. I lose my job."

Beck certainly should be fired but he probably won’t be – over this. We've previously predicted that Beck is headed for some kind of major fall from Fox. There have already been signs oftrouble between him and management. But if they had serious objections to Beck's race-baiting, he would have been fired long ago.